MIDDLE EAST

FREED HOSTAGE TRIO ENTERS JORDAN

AMMAN, Jordan – Two Indonesian journalists and their Jordanian driver freed by insurgents in Iraq crossed safely into neighboring Jordan yesterday, an Indonesia Embassy official said.

Meutya Viada Hafid, 26, and 36-year-old cameraman Budiyanto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, and driver Ibrahim Abdel Khader were abducted last week by insurgents outside Ramadi, a volatile city west of Baghdad.

Terrorists in a videotape received Monday by the Associated Press Television News in Baghdad said the three were released because of the “goodwill” shown by the captives and religious ties. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, was critical of the American-led 2003 invasion of Iraq and has refused to send troops.

The three freed hostages had been waiting on the Iraqi side of the border with Jordan since Monday because the crossing was closed by the Iraqi government for the Shiite Ashoura holiday.

The three have said they were abducted by three men, including one with an assault rifle, while refueling their vehicle. They will return to Indonesia today.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

PROBE FINDS SEA OF ICE ON MARS

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Images relayed by a European space probe reveal the existence of a sea of ice close to the equator of Mars, scientists said yesterday at a conference in the Netherlands. The existence of water or ice would significantly increase the chance that microscopic life may also be found on Mars.

The evidence comes from photographs – not yet published – taken last year by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express probe currently orbiting the red planet. Scientists have long theorized there was once water on Mars, and data from NASA’s Mars Rovers has recently appeared to confirm it. But most scientists believed the water had evaporated into the atmosphere early in the planet’s history. “The point is that the ice is very recent: it appears to still be there, covered beneath a layer of dust and ash,” John Murray of Britain’s Open University told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Photographs from the Mars Express showing what ESA scientists said was the most direct evidence yet of water in the form of ice on the red planet have been sent back and analyzed over the past few months.

Mr. Murray co-authored a paper detailing the findings which was to be published in the March 17 issue of Nature.

“You can see pack ice in formations that are remarkably similar, identical to ice floes in Antarctica,” he said.

Mr. Murray said the ice was believed to have formed five million years ago – the blink of an eye, in geological terms – atop a body of water the size of Earth’s North Sea.

– Associated Press

QUEEN WILL NOT ATTEND PRINCE CHARLES WEDDING

LONDON – Buckingham Palace said yesterday that Queen Elizabeth II would not attend the civil marriage ceremony of her son Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles – but that her absence should not be interpreted as a snub. The monarch will attend the church blessing at Windsor Castle after the April 8 civil ceremony in the local town hall and will host the wedding reception at the castle.

“The queen will not be attending the civil ceremony because she is aware that the prince and Mrs. Parker Bowles wanted to keep the occasion low-key,” a palace spokeswoman said. “The queen and the rest of the royal family will, of course, be going to the service of dedication at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.”

The spokeswoman denied the queen was snubbing her son’s second marriage. Britain’s Press Association reported that Charles’s sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, and Parker Bowles’s grown children, Tom and Laura, were expected to attend the civil wedding in the Guildhall at Windsor.

The royal household has said Charles will not have a best man.

– Associated Press

ICELANDIC AUTHORITIES GIVE FISCHER A PASSPORT

REYKJAVIK, Iceland – Icelandic immigration authorities agreed yesterday to grant the former American chess champion Bobby Fischer a special passport for foreigners that would allow him to travel to Western Europe, officials said.

Lawmakers in the Nordic country last week rejected Mr. Fischer’s citizenship application, prompting his supporters to apply on his behalf for a so-called foreigner’s passport. The document would allow him to travel freely between the 15 Western European countries of the Schengen zone, a region covering much of Western Europe where passports are not required, but not to America, said Gudrun Ogmundsdottir, a member of Iceland’s Parliament General Committee.

America has been seeking Mr. Fischer, 61, for more than a decade on charges of violating international sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing chess there in 1992.

The former chess champion has been detained in Tokyo since he was arrested six months ago for trying to board a plane to the Philippines with an invalid American passport, and Japan has ordered him deported to the United States.

– Associated Press